Biblioburro

Luis Soriano, a schoolteacher in Columbia, has made it his mission (along with donkeys Alfa and Beto) to fight illiteracy and help rural children get all the books they need:

Soriano, 38, is a primary school teacher who spends his free time operating a “biblioburro,” a mobile library on donkeys that offers reading education for hundreds of children living in what he describes as “abandoned regions” in the Colombian state of Magdalena.

“In [rural] regions, a child must walk or ride a donkey for up to 40 minutes to reach the closest schools,” Soriano said. “The children have very few opportunities to go to secondary school. …There are [few] teachers that would like to teach in the countryside.”